“At least,” she said to herself, “I did not rouse insulting pity in him; I do not owe him my life. Oh, my first, my last, my only love! what an end to it!” She sprang upon Francine, who was terrified. “Do you love a man? Oh, yes, yes, I remember; you do. I am glad I have a woman here who can understand me. Ah, my poor Francette, man is a miserable being. Ha! he said he loved me, and his love could not bear the slightest test! But I,--if all men had accused him I would have defended him; if the universe rejected him my soul should have been his refuge. In the old days life was filled with human beings coming and going for whom I did not care; it was sad and dull, but not horrible; but now, now, what is life without him? He will live on, and I not near him! I shall not see him, speak to him, feel him, hold him, press him,--ha! I would rather strangle him myself in his sleep!” Francine, horrified, looked at her in silence. “Kill the man you love?” she said, in a soft voice. “Yes, yes, if he ceases to love me.” But after those ruthless words she hid her face in her hands, and sat down silently. The next day a man presented himself without being announced. His face was stern. It was Hulot, followed by Corentin. Mademoiselle de Verneuil looked at the commandant and trembled. “You have come,” she said, “to ask me to account for your friends. They are dead.” “I know it,” he replied, “and not in the service of the Republic.” “For me, and by me,” she said. “You preach the nation to me. Can the nation bring to life those who die for her? Can she even avenge them? But I--I will avenge them!” she cried. The awful images of the catastrophe filled her imagination suddenly, and the graceful creature who held modesty to be the first of women’s wiles forgot herself in a moment of madness, and marched towards the amazed commandant brusquely.